Jumping Up
Alexandra Santos, Dip. ACP
© 2006 Alexandra Santos. All
rights reserved
Dogs are
social animals, so greeting comes naturally to them. They also belong to a
species with very ritualized social behaviors, which are quite different from
ours. For example, licking another dog’s lips and corners of the mouth is a
typical greeting behavior. It should come as no surprise, then, that a dog will
greet his owner pretty much like he greets other dogs, not because he regards
us as dogs (the process of imprinting has ensured that dogs perceive humans as
being different from them), but because that behavior is part of the dog’s
communication and, unlike humans who can learn to speak different languages,
dogs use the only language they know. Another common reason why dogs jump up is
simply because nobody has taught them not to! Now you may find it so cute how
your 8-week old puppy jumps up to greet you because he is so excited to see
you. And so does the rest of the family and friends. But how cute will this
behavior be when the puppy is 8 months old and knocks over a child or an
elderly or fragile person? How cute will this behavior be when you’re all
dressed up to go out and the puppy comes running from the garden and jumps up
at you with muddy paws? This is when problems begin and the puppy gets confused
– on one hand, you encourage him to jump up by opening your arms, patting your
knees, clapping your hands when you come home and are as excited about greeting
him as he is about greeting you. On the other hand, when you are all dressed up
and ready to go out, the last thing you want is for him to jump up. As soon as
he does, you push him down. What you have really done, is reward him with
physical contact for having jumped (yes, we often inadvertently reward the very
behaviors that we want to extinguish). Since behaviors that are rewarded tend
to repeat themselves, you will actually be encouraging your puppy to jump up!
So, as pushing your puppy down is not working, you knee him on the chest, in an
attempt to make it quite clear that you do not want him jumping up. You will
then be faced with two problems: firstly, kneeing the puppy on the chest hurts
him; secondly, by the time you knee him he will already have jumped, so you are
not preventing jumping from occurring – by the time you take action, it will
already have occurred! The same applies to pushing him down. In short, if you
want to prevent your puppy from jumping up, you need to actively teach him not
to do it, as opposed to taking action after he is done it. So how should you
teach him ? 1 ) Think of something that your puppy cannot physically do and
jump up at the same time. For example, a puppy cannot sit and jump up at the
same time. Teach him to sit so that he will learn that in order to greet you or
be greeted he has to remain sitting. Make sure you reward him and lavish him
with praise while teaching him to sit. Be careful, though, not to use a too
enthusiastic tone of voice when you praise, so that you do not run the risk of
him popping right back up again. Reward and praise are paramount (remember that
behaviors that are rewarded tend to repeat themselves, and remember that dogs
do what works for them. So, if jumping up is more rewarding than sitting, he
will opt for jumping, hence the importance of rewarding the sit). 2) Remember
that repetition is important during the learning process. So be consistent and
patient. Do not make the mistake of giving your puppy attention should he jump.
Make sure the rest of the family and friends behave likewise. Should the puppy
jump, cross your arms, turn your back on him and simply ignore him. If you and
everyone else consistently reward and praise the puppy for sitting and ignore
him for jumping up, he will eventually learn that sitting is more rewarding
than jumping up. In other words, sitting means getting attention whereas
jumping up results in being ignored. Expect your puppy to make mistakes while
you’re teaching him. After all, dogs also learn through trial and error!